er's arms,
and there sobbed out the strange story of her second letter and the two
Lord Tulliwuddles.

It were difficult to say whether anger at her daughter's deceit,
indignation with the treacherous Baron, or a stern pleasure in finding
her worst prognostications in a fair way to being proved, was the
uppermost emotion in Lady Grillyer's mind when she had listened to this
relation. Certainly poor Alicia could not but think that sympathy for
her troubles formed no ingredient in the mixture.

"To think of your concealing this from me for so long!" she cried: "and
Sir Justin abetting you! I shall tell him very plainly what I think
of him! But if my daughter sets an example in treachery, what can one
expect of one's friends?"

"After all, mamma, it was my own and Rudolph's concern more than
your's!" exclaimed Alicia, flaring up for an instant.

"Don't answer me, child!" thundered the Countess. "Fetch me a railway
time-table, and say nothing that may add to your sin!"

"A time-table, mamma? What for?"

"I am going to Scotland," pronounced the Countess.

"Then I shall go too!"

"Indeed you shall not. You will wait here till I have brought Rudolph
back to you."

The Baroness said nothing aloud, but within her wounded heart she
thought bitterly,

"Mamma seems to forget that even worms will turn sometimes!"

CHAPTER XXVIII

"A decidedly delectable residence," said Count Bunker to himself as
his dog-cart approached the lodge gates of The Lash. "And a very proper
setting for the pleasant scenes so shortly to be enacted. Lodge, avenue,
a bogus turret or two, and a flagstaff on top of 'em--by Gad, I think
one may safely assume a tolerable cellar in such a mansion."

As he drove up the avenue between a double line of ancient elms and
sycamores, his satisfaction increased and his spirits rose ever higher.

"I wonder if I can forecast the evening: a game of three-handed bridge,
in which I trust I'll be lucky enough to lose a little silver, that'll
put 'em in good-humor and make old Miss What-d'ye-may-call-her the more
willing to go to bed early; then the departure of the chaperon; and then
the tete-a-tete! I hope to Heaven I haven't got rusty!"

With considerable satisfaction he ran over the outfit he had brought,
deeming it even on second thoughts a singularly happy selection: the
dining coat with pale-blue lapels, the white tie of a new material
and cut borrowed from the Baron's finery, the socks so ravishing